A virtual machine and its host must meet resource and configuration requirements for the virtual machine disks to be migrated with Storage vMotion.

Storage vMotion is subject to the following requirements and limitations:

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Virtual machines with snapshots cannot be migrated using Storage vMotion.

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Virtual machine disks must be in persistent mode or be raw device mappings (RDMs). For virtual compatibility mode RDMs, you can migrate the mapping file or convert to thick-provisioned or thin-provisioned disks during migration as long as the destination is not an NFS datastore. If you convert the mapping file, a new virtual disk is created and the contents of the mapped LUN are copied to this disk. For physical compatibility mode RDMs, you can migrate the mapping file only.

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Migration of virtual machines during VMware Tools installation is not supported.

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The host on which the virtual machine is running must have a license that includes Storage vMotion.

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ESX/ESXi 3.5 hosts must be licensed and configured for vMotion. ESX/ESXi 4.0 and later hosts do not require vMotion configuration in order to perform migration with Storage vMotion.

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The host on which the virtual machine is running must have access to both the source and target datastores.